Error Message while Using Intersect Tool

[TomVo]

Hello,

I have been receiving error message during intersecting process (picture). I am trying to intersect between these two layers: 1) city boundaries and 2) buffers of those cities. Have anyone face this issue before? Please let me know how to solve it.

Thanks in advance!

Tom.

[SepheFox]

You might try running the Repair Geometry tool on your layers first, since you're getting a topology error. Also, do any of your layers have M or Z values?

[TomVo]

No, there are no Z or M values.

[Sol_Wuensch]

Two things stick out to me - 'Invalid topology' and 'out of memory'

Maybe look at these threads

Invalid Topology [OUT_OF_MEMORY]

Dissolve Error 999999 Invalid Topology Out of memory  You might want to try using the Repair Geometry tool on your dataset?ArcGIS Help 10.1  Could it have anything to do with multipart features in your parcel data?

ArcGIS 10 Pre-release Intersect Failure on Large Dataset  - Make sure your computer is up to minimum requirements

Have you looked in the geoprocessing results window?  Perhaps if you look at the messages there is more detailed error information?  What about checking the environment variables and inputs there too.  Tried turning off Background Geoprocessing?

[TomVo]

Sephe and Sol, thank you both for your suggestions.

I am running ArcGIS on a server that has 32gb of RAM. I will repair my geometry and shorten my file path name. It's just weird to me that the same process worked for 1 mile buffer.

[SepheFox]

Yes, ArcGIS can be quirky in what works and what doesn't sometimes, but one explanation could be that there are geometry problems only in areas outside of those 1 mile buffers. I hope it works, and I'm sorry we hijacked your thread a little with the workings of GeoNet. Let us know!

[TomVo]

Thanks. Will try and post my results here.

By the way, should i put all my working feature datasets into gdb?

[SepheFox]

I would. At least that way you can eliminate any of the limitations of working with shapefiles. In fact, when I have run into "memory" issues, I have had some luck with exporting my input data into the same GDB that I'm using for any outputs. That way you're not switching directories. Also, I try not to bury my GIS folders and GDBs too far down in the directory structure--keep them in the root of the C drive preferable. This also prevents long path names. I hope one of our suggestions helps! Sometimes these weird "memory" issues are hard to diagnose.

[RakeshSinha]

Hi Tom,

I would try the Repair Geometry tool first as everyone else suggested. However, if even that does not do the trick for you do check for ‘Dicing Godzillas’. It occurs with features with too many vertices. Though there is no limit specified for executing a Geoprocessing tool however this error: 999999 which is a generic error is often seen when the vertices exceed 2 million in the features.

Here’s a link for your reference as how you can calculate the number of vertices for your input features.

Dicing Godzillas (features with too many vertices) | ArcGIS Blog 

I hope this helps!

[TomVo]

Rakesh,

I checked my number of vertices; both of my layer have the the MAX of VERTICES less than 2 million. I don't think this is the case.

The short term solution is to reduce the size of the dataset. As in the picture below, there are many overlapping areas created by the buffers.

Maybe the output's data size is too large that the software could not handle...that could also be one of the reasons.

[SepheFox]

Holy moly! That is a lot of buffers! Did you get a chance to read some of the links that Sol posted? I would also advise googling the problem, as I saw a lot of possible reasons and solutions out there when I did so.